; 1971 

!5 A75 
>py 1 



Romance of Big Business Series 

NUMBER FOUR 




Written for the 
Children of ilmerica 

11919 







ARMOUR'S BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND ECONOMICS 
R. J. H. DeLOACH, Director UNION STOCK YARDS, CHICAGO, ILL. 



c 



■ "■' I ix I 



Romance of Big Business Series 

NUMBER FOUR 



WRITTEN FOR THE 
CHILDREN O^AMERICA 




o 




Armour's Bureau 
of Agricultural Research and Economics 

R. J. H. DeLOACH, Director 

Union Stock Yards 
Chicago, 111. 






>, 



I It 



Copyright i9I9 
Armour and Company 



MAV -8 1919 
©CI.A516521 



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<fl 



*-,* 



•^45 



Where is the Cat Farm? 



COMEWHERE there is a source for the huge supply 
of strings made for numberless musical instru- 
ments, for the racquets of an army of tennis players, 
for the fine, strong ligatures which surgeons use when 
they make a neat seam in a human body, for all the 
different things we have always called "catgut." 

It is too bad to spoil a trade name so old that no 
one knows just where it came from; but really, cats 
have no more to do with the manufacture of "catgut" 
than they have with the making of a "catboat" or the 
materials in a "cat-o'-nine-tails !" No more than sand 
has to do with "sand" paper. 

If all the household pets and all the homeless 
alley-cats in the world were caught and killed they 
would still have nothing to do with the manufacture 
of catgut, for there is not an atom of their poor little 
bodies that is ever used in 
making it. 

Instead of cats it is Mary's 
little lamb and the rest of the 
sheep relatives which furnish 
the material for all the cat- 
gut in use today. 

No one seems to know 
who first discovered that the 
thin, rubber-like material of 
animal intestines was the 
finest thing in the world for 




,-* 



MUSICAL STRINGS 



musical strings, but they have been in use for hun- 
dreds and hundreds of years. 

So far as the records go, the first violin strings 
were made in Italy, the home of music, and this sheds 
a very little light on the name. There was a time 
when a violin was called a "kit," and the strings for 
it were called "kit-strings." As these strings were 
sometimes of wire and sometimes made from intestines, 
it is easy to suppose that the difference was shown by 
calling one of them "kitgut." More than likely our 
present name of "catgut" has come from this, though 
no one really knows. 

For a good many hundred years the making of 
catgut was done almost entirely in Italy and they had 
no trouble in supplying all the musical instruments 
with the strings needed. 

But as the world grew richer and better and the 
people everywhere began to understand music and art 
and literature, more musical instruments were de- 
manded and more catgut was needed for them than 
the small factories of Europe could 
secure the intestines to supply. 

So, in the latter part of the last 

century, the manufacturers in the old 

countries began to call on America, 

with its great packing industries, to 

furnish them with the materials 

for making their musical strings. 

In this way great quantities 

of sheep intestines were shipped 

to the catgut factories in Europe, 

made into strings there, and 

shipped back to be used in this 




MUSICAL STRINGS 



country, with freight and express charges for both 
journeys, custom house duties, packing, and a good 
many other items of expense added to the first eost 
of them. 

It did not look like good business to Armour and 
Company or fair to those who bought, so, a few years 
ago — in 1912, to be exact — they decided to manufacture 
their own supplies of intestinal material into the 
finished product, instead of sending them to Europe 
to be made up and returned. 

In the beginning only a small factory was built 
but the very best of machinery was installed and 
skilled workmen and managers placed in charge. 

Little by little the American string, made in the 
little Armour factory from the finest materials while 
they were in the best possible condi- 
tion, began to find favor. Some great 
players who tried them said they were 
better than any string made anywhere 
else and it was not long un- 
til players generally began 
the use of strings made in 
this country. 

So the little business be- 
gan to grow up and act 
like a big business and to 
have all the orders it could 
fill. 

Then came the great war 
and in a little while no mu- 
sical strings and not much 
else could be brought from 
Europe. 




MUSICAL STRINGS 



So they used Armour strings and found that if 
there was any difference the American string was the 
better of the two — and suddenly the demand was so 
great that the little catgut factory grew up with a rush 
and became a big catgut factory, which is still growing. 

From a Ba-a Sheep to an E-String 

When a sheep is dressed part of the intestines are 
sent to the sausage casing department to be made into 
containers for different kinds of sausage, but the 
small intestine, which is about the size of a lead pencil, 
and eight yards long, is sent to the string factory to 
be manufactured into various products, such as musical 

instrument 
strings, surgical 
ligatures or cat- 
gut, tennis rack- 
et strings, clock 
cords, loom gut, 
belt lacings, 
belting and the 
like. 

First they are drawn over dull blades which scrape 
off all shreds and foreign matter, then they go to more 
baths — both chemical and plain — until they are thor- 
oughly clean and transparent. 

After the splitting of the intestine, which is done 
by a skilled workman who draws the moist, slippery 
material over a wooden finger-shaped instrument, in 
the center of which there is a sharp blade vertically 
set, the little strands are again cleaned by placing 
them in a chemical bath in a machine that looks some- 




MUSICAL STRINGS 



thing like a washtub with many wringers attached, 
through which they pass many times. 

Several of these slender, elastic strands are woven 
into one musical string of ordinary size and the spin- 
ning of each one requires the art of two skilled and 
careful men who know exactly how many turns the 
old-fashioned spinning wheel must make and just how 
the wet strands or half-guts must be fed to the string 
so it will be of even size and strength. 

After the spinning the strings are put on frames in 
the drying room and left 
until they are thoroughly 
dry and "seasoned/' which 
takes from ten to sixteen 
days. 

They are rough and un- 
finished-looking when they 
come off the frames, so the 
skilled worker comes in /j 
again, stretches them ona / 
machine which keeps them 
turning while he goes back 
and forth, from end to end, 
polishing them with sand 
paper and chalk until they 
are smooth and glistening. 
Hand polishing is also used 
extensively. Just as the 
wool of some sheep is differ- 
ent in color from that of others, so the intestines, too, 
vary in shade. But while some are lighter and some 
are darker, color makes no difference in either quality 
or tone. 




Cleaning 



10 



MUSICAL STRINGS 



If the string is to be artificially colored, as is desir- 
able for some uses, such as ukulele, harp, and tennis 
strings, this is done after it leaves the spinning-wheel 
and before it goes to the drying frames. 

After the drying and polishing there is little more, 
in a manufacturing way, for them to undergo; but there 

are still some delicate 
processes of testing 
them for strength and 
size, then they are cut 
into necessary lengths, 
coiled, inserted in en- 
velopes, boxed, labeled 
and sent to market. 

This, in short, is 
the method of making 
all strings for musical 
instruments, but of the 
hundreds of little deli- 
cate processes which 
make the difference be- 
tween the many kinds 
and grades put on the 
market, very little can 

be explained in a general story without becoming 

tedious and technical. 

All of these strings are made in different sizes and 
of different grades to meet the requirements of the 
trade. 

The harp strings are, perhaps, the most wonder- 
ful of all, for sometimes a hundred or more of the 
tie gut strands are spun into one string. 




Splitting 



MUS ICAL STRINGS 



11 



And, if it requires art and skill to weave a dozen 
strips into one small string, it is easy to see what it 
means to spin a hundred strands into a perfect string, 
only a little larger, that is equally strong and close 
throughout its whole length. 

When one listens to the full, mellow tones of a harp 
as it responds to the touch of gifted fingers, it is diffi- 
cult to realize that it would be utterly impossible 
without the help of hundreds of little woolly sheep, 
who live their lives and lay them down in order that 
the world may be better and happier! 

Then, in addition, 
there are strings that 
are colored, strings that 
are treated so as to 
make them as nearly 
moisture-proof as any- 
thing of the sort may 
be and strings that are 
made to stand the dry 
weather. 



Then there are the 
drum-snares — which 
are the little families sorting 

or sets of strings drawn across the drum head to pro- 
duce the desired volume of sound. 

The drum heads, too, are a packing house product, 
for these are made of calfskin, goatskin, or buck. 

Naturally there are different sizes of drums, so 
there must be all sizes of heads for them — little drum 
heads and big drum heads and medium drum heads — 
and all these must be made in different weights 




12 



MUSICAL STRINGS 



and grades and even, sometimes, of different materials. 

And there is the problem of tennis strings. 

Many of you know a great deal about this and can 
talk wisely of the relative merits of "domestic" and 
"imported" and "Oriental" brands. 

But did you know that the heavy "Oriental" 
string which looks so strong and durable and costs so 
little, is not made of gut at all ? 

It is "Oriental" all right, for it comes from Japan, 
but there it is made of heavy sinews and tendons 

which have no life or 




elasticity, instead of 
the responsive intes- 
tinal material which 
has a quality only 
to be described by 
the word "resilient." 

There is as much 
difference between 
the tennis string 
made of sheep intes- 
tines and the one 
made of sinews, as 
there is between a 
rubber ball and one 
made of wood. One 

seems "alive" to the ball when it strikes it, the other 

is dead in its frame. 

But, at the string factory of Armour and Company, 
where there is such a quantity of high-grade material, 
tennis strings are made from intestines only, and 
sinews and tendons are used in making glue. 



Spinning 






MUSICAL STRINGS 



13 



Many other things, mostly for mechanical and 
manufacturing uses, are made from the slender intestine 
of the sheep, but the most interesting of all are the 
fine ligatures or threads which surgeons use for taking 
stitches in the human body. 

It is only a few years since these were made of linen, 
or cotton, or even of fine wire — and then it was almost 
as much pain and 
trouble to take them 
out as to put them in. 
But the delicate "gut" 
ligature, made from the 
strong, silky-smooth 
side of the narrow 
sheep intestine, is taken 
up or absorbed by the 
flesh of the patient as 
he recovers, so that by the ~^= 
time he is quite well the stitches 
have all disappeared. 

These required an endless amount of study and 
years of experimenting with different methods of 
making and finishing, before they became the satis- 
factory ligature the surgeons know today. The first 
ones, used in an experiment on guinea pigs which had 
been mercifully chloroformed until they knew no pain, 
absorbed too soon because they were not quite hard 
enough, and the blood absorbed them too quickly. 

The next ones went to the other extreme and were 
so firm that they did not absorb at all and had to be 
taken out the same as linen, or wire ligature. 




yj[L \ 



Polishing 



14 



MUSICAL STRINGS 



But the doctors and scientific men, who were study- 
ing every means of relieving pain then — this was a 
great many years ago — the same as they are now, 
believed they were on the right track and finally a 
"gut" ligature, as nearly perfect as it is possible to be, 
was ready for use and is one of the products of Armour 

and Company. These ligatures, like other 

strings, are put up in differ- 
ent ways, some being finer 
than others and some being 
sealed in small glass bottles 
holding an "antisep- 
tic* ' fluid, so that they 
may be used without 
further preparation, or 
sterilizing if there is a 
sudden need, an emer- 
gency call, where only 
quick action will save life. 

These, too, are gauged for size, tested for strength, 
numbered and labeled, before putting them on sale. 




Sorting and 
Packing 




Making an Ally of Nature 

Knowledge and patience and skill are needed for 
the making of all these things, but far, far more of 
these are needed to search out and separate the natural, 
helpful things hidden in the organs and glands of a food 
animal's body. 

Just as the heart and lungs of an animal do the 
same work that they perform in a human body, so the 
wonderful and delicate glands do much the same work 
in both. And because, oftentimes, these glands are 
but little understood and their work in both animal 
and human is very much of a mystery, there seems 
always a wide field for study and much, very much, 

still to be learned 



-hi ii'- li ii ».j 

~* L. i! i M 

- — >. tv^Jl \i > I 



P"ffl.:| 
NhHhi ii 




from them that 
will benefit the 
world. 

Much as 
has been 
done in this 
way in the 
last few 
years, there 
is still much 
to be learned 
and no one 
can tell what 
secrets still 
lie hidden in 
the bodies of 



Selecting and Preparing Glands 



16 



PHARMACEUTICALS 



food-animals nor what benefits they will yet bestow 
on mankind. 

But where, a few years ago, all this fertile field of 
research went to the waste pile and was lost, now 
everything is saved and the light of science has done 
wonders in redeeming it. 

In this way it has been learned that sometimes, 
when a gland in a human body becomes sick or tired, 
the same one in a healthy animal's body is able to 
give up its strength and power in a helpful way. 

Sometimes a little gland manufactures or "secretes" 
as we say, a fluid of some sort that is necessary to 
health. Perhaps even the doctors and scientists 
cannot tell just what this fluid is or why it is so needful 
—they only know that it is. Then, if something happens 
to the tiny gland and it can no longer manufacture its 
helpful product, illness results and no one knows just 
what to do or how the gland can be renewed and made 
to carry on its work again. 

So the food animals have been called on to give up 
their glands — sometimes working in one way, some- 
times in another, but 
always with the 
thought of helping the 
sick or useless one in a 
human body. 

These things can 
hardly be called "medi- 
cines," any more than 
a roast or a chop would 
be, for they are almost 
always used to supply 

n *'h 

Pepsin Drying 




PHARMACEUTICALS 17 

something that the human body lacks and that the 
food animal can give — just as it gives food and other 
things that men and women need. 

Some of these things have been known and made 
in small quantities for a great many years but, until 
the packing houses, with their great numbers of 
freshly-killed animals, began the manufacture of them, 
the demand was always greater than the supply. 

Others are comparatively new and require such 
huge quantities of material for study and experiment 
and for manufacture, that they are possible only where 
large numbers of animals are killed. 

There are groups of such remedies, all made from 
the same glands, some of them being the simplest 
preparations and others made by separating each 
tiny particle from those that differ from it until all 
the different atoms are placed by themselves and each 
class is ready to do a work of its own. 

If you could take a loaf of bread and separate it 
by chemical processes, into flour and milk and sugar 
and salt and yeast, you would be doing, as nearly as 
I can explain it, what the chemists do to a gland 
they know contains several different "ingredients" 
or what they call "active principles. " 

Sometimes they take these "active principles" and 
put them together again in a different way to make 
something else the human body needs — just as you 
might take some of the things you found in the loaf of 
bread and make them into cake or muffins. 

Many, many years of study and hard work have 
gone into every preparation that is finally accepted 
by doctors and surgeons — hard work, not only by 



18 



PHARMACEUTICALS 



those at the laboratories of Armour and Company, 
but by brilliant men all over the country. 

However, as Armour and Company furnishes so 
much of the material for all this study and experiment 
and has the means of manufacture, it follows that the 
final results are largely due to them, though in many 
cases they consider themselves greatly indebted to 
others for the work that has been done. 

Some of these things are manufactured from 
glands so tiny that thousands of cattle and more than 
a hundred thousand sheep are needed to make a single 
pound, so their manufacture is not possible anywhere 
but at the largest of packing plants, and the world 
knew nothing of them until the big plants, with their 
great numbers of food animals, could develop them. 




PHARMACEUTICALS 19 



A Peep at the Preparations 

A wonderful "group" of remedies is known as the 
"suprarenal preparations" and they are made from 
small glands just above the kidneys of the sheep. 
(The name itself shows the origin of these remedies 
for "renal" means kidney and "super," above. "Supra- 
renal" — "above the kidney.") 

One of these called "suprarenalin" is a powerful 
heart stimulant and requires the glands of 135,000 
animals to make a pound of it. Under such circum- 
stances it cannot help being expensive, costing, some- 
times, $5,000 a pound, but fortunately only a little is 
needed for a dose. 

Thousands of lives, especially those of little chil- 
dren who have become weakened by scarlet fever or 
diphtheria, have been saved by suprarenalin. 

At the base of the brain in all animals — in man, as 
well as in the lower orders — is a little gland known as 
the "pituitary body" and this is the source of another 
group of rare remedies used for relieving suffering and 
giving strength where weakness or "shock" is the 
greatest danger. 

A little gland in the throat of a sheep, known as the 
"thyroid" gland, is quite similar to one in the throat 
of a human being. Sometimes the one in the human 
throat becomes sick and sometimes a child is born 
whose thyroid gland is imperfect and cannot do its 
work. 

Not a great many years ago there was no help in 
such cases, but now the gland from the sheep fs made 
to help and sometimes to cure. 



20 



PHARMACEUTICALS 



When a child is born with this gland in a useless 
condition it is sometimes afflicted in various ways and 
sometimes its brain cannot grow or guide its body. 
We used to call such children "idiots," "mental de- 
fectives," or "feeble-minded." 

Today they are very often helped and sometimes 
made as well as other children by giving the remedy 
made from the sheep thyroid because it supplies the 
thing lacking in their own bodies, and because their 
trouble was not a feeble mind but a feeble thyroid 
gland, whose mysterious secretion or fluid is necessary 
to every one of us. 

Such children must almost always take a little of 
the thyroid remedy from time to time, so as to keep it 
circulating in 
their bodies, 
just as their 
own thyroid 
glands would 
do if they had 
them in per- 
fect condi- 
tion. 

This is not the 
only use of the 
thyroid group, 
however, for they 
are used in many 
ways for grown 
people, as well as 
for children. 

Another throat n^ 
gland is the "thy- 

Condenser 





PHARMACEUTICALS 



21 



mus" and this is found in all young animals — the human 
young, too, — but disappears in most of them when they 
are grown. 

Because this gland is so closely associated with 
growth it was soon learned that if it was imperfect or 
its work was interfered with in any way, growth and 
development stopped, so the remedies made from 
the thymus of the sheep are helpful to children who 




do not grow as they should, whose bones are soft, 
whose food seems to do them no good. 

Like the thyroid remedies, this group has its uses 
for grown people, too. 

During the great war many lives were saved by a 
preparation made from the brains of cattle, which 
would check all ordinary bleeding or hemorrhage from 
wounds or operations. 



22 



PHARMACEUTICALS 



To make this the cattle had to be killed in a special 
way and the brain tissue handled with the greatest 
care and skill. So helpful was it, that it is impossible 
to even guess how many brave boys were saved by 
this alone. 



as rare 



One of the medicines that is no longer spoken of 
because it is well-known and has been made 
a long time, is "pepsin" which helps in the digestion of 
food and is found in the lining of hogs' stomachs. 

Physicians use it to relieve dyspepsia and other 
stomach troubles. 

"Pancreatin," another remedy long known to 
physicians, is made from the "pancreas" or sweetbread 
found inside the hog and this is used to put in the food 
of delicate babies and of invalids so it will digest easily. 

It is different from pepsin, but its power to help in 
the digestion of food seems just about as great after 
it has been taken as medicine as when it worked on the 
food given to the animal in which it was found. 

Neither pepsin nor 
pancreatin had been 
manufactured to the best 
advantage when Armour 
and Companybeganmak- 
ing them, largely be- 
cause the business was 
small and those engaged 
in it were compelled to 
gather such materials 
as they could, here and 
there. But, like many 
other things, as soon as 




PHARMACEUTICALS 



23 



Armour and Company, with their unlimited supply 
of the best materials to choose from, entered the field, 
the quality of both of these improved, for, by putting 
out a high standard of goods themselves, they com- 
pelled others to do so, too. 

Another useful product of the food animal is 
oxgall, the greenish fluid in the gall-bladder, near the 
liver. 

This is made into a medicine in tablet form, but 
it has more manufacturing uses than it has medical. 
Artists use it in mixing their paints to make them 
"flow" well and yet to bind or blend all the different 
ingredients together. It is also used in making indelible 
inks and pencils and is put into fine varnishes. 

As it has a "soapy" quality it is much in demand by 
cleaners and dyers for many purposes. 

Still another, which is more food than medicine, is 

the "rennet" which 
comes from the stom- 
achs of calves and is 
used in making cheese 
because of its power to 
digest milk. 

One form of rennet 
is "junket," used for a 
dainty dessert in almost 
every family and as an 
easily digested food for 
children or for those 
who are ill. 

Perhaps, strangest 
of all, is the use to 




24 



PHARMACEUTICALS 



which the small, pebbly stones, sometimes found in 
the gall-bladder and known as "gall-stones," are put. 

These are shipped to Japan where those who are 
superstitious or who believe in "signs" or "charms" 
buy them and carry them about in their pockets to 
bring them good luck, in much the same way as people 
in this country sometimes hang a horseshoe over the 
door or carry a rabbit's foot around with them. 

And in addition to these more important things, 
there are a large number of lesser ones made by 
Armour and Company. 

Some of these are in constant demand, some are 
seldom used, but there are about fifty in all which 
come from the interior organs of cattle, sheep and 
hogs to make the world healthier and happier. 

Even at that, the science of "animaltherapy" or 
"organotherapy" as this work is called, is only begin- 
ning and every year will see more and more wonderful 
discoveries made by those 
who study the vital or- | 
gans of both lower ani- * 
mals and human beings, 
so that suffering may be 
lessened and disease 
overcome. 

All these things, too, 
have their effect on the 
price of meat and lard, on 
sausage and ham. For 
here again is an income 
that reduces the cost of 
handling a food animal 

pealing Tubes 




PHARMACEUTICALS 



25 



and takes a certain amount off the price we would 
otherwise pay for a steak or roast. 

Even during the great war, when all Europe was 
calling on the United States for meat and meat 
products, prices did not rise as much as on many other 
things which were in less demand, and good meats were 
always within the means of even those workers who 
performed heavy, unskilled labor and so received 
the lowest wages. 



In some countries the unskilled laborers 
do not have meat of any sort very often and 
when they do it is usually horse-meat or — 
sometimes — even mule-meat. 

Those who work in this country can have 
the best of food, but not many of us realize 
that it is the putting of every part and par- 
ticle of a food animal to its highest use that 
helps to keep the price of meats within reason 

and makes the American workman envied the world 

over. 




Surgical 
Ligature 



Announcement to Teachers 

fJlHIS little booklet has been prepared to meet the 
•*■ urgent demands of the public for a better under- 
standing of the business that it is designed to por- 
tray. It has been published for free distribution 
among teachers, and arrangements have been made 
with the publishers whereby classes will be furnished 
at the actual cost of paper and printing, which is 
approximately three cents a copy. 

This series of booklets will comprise six num- 
bers when completed, as follows : 

Book I — Dreams That Came True. 
II— The Story of a Soap Bubble. 
Ill— The Story of Glue. 
IV— The Story of Musical Strings 
and Pharmaceuticals. 
V— Feeding the Farm. 
VI— The River of Food. 



RKQ NO 410014 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 469 1 



06 1 




